NYT: GOP not extreme on abortion

7/14/13 11:45 AM EDT

Sunday's New York Times ran a David Leonhardt article on the tricky politics of abortion. Leonhardt's suggestion that Republicans are no more extreme on the politics of abortion than Democrats is one rarely expressed by national media outlets, and one that more editors and news directors should note.

A consumer of national news might be surprised to learn that a plurality of voters support a congressional bill that passed the House that would ban abortion after 20 weeks, with exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother. And while 60 percent of Americans think that abortion should be legal in the first trimester, Leonhardt reports that almost 70 percent of Americans believe it should be illegal in the second trimester.

Those two poll numbers show that the Democratic base is just as out of touch with mainstream voters as Republicans when it comes to the issue of abortion. Most Americans do not want the government getting in the way of a woman's choice early in her pregnancy. But most do want the right of the unborn child to take precedence as she moves toward viability. It is a balance that the Supreme Court has been weighing since Rove v. Wade was handed down in 1973.

Why do poll numbers matter if the final word still rests with the United States Supreme Court? Because those justices are far more attached to political realities than they might admit. In fact, Roe v. Wade is still the law of the land because of the pull of public opinion on the Supreme Court. In the 1992 case Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor upheld Roe, in part, because O'Connor perceived that upholding the law was still supported by public opinion. To overturn it, O'Connor wrote, might undermine public confidence in the court.

Two decades later, opinions on abortion have moved rightward because of advances in science and technology. Viability has been pushed forward since Roe was handed down 40 years ago, and 3D imaging now connects parents to their unborn children in ways not imagined in 1973.

Five years ago, I spent much of my summer in the NICU of Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola, Fla., with my youngest son who had been born 10 weeks early. There were other babies in the NICU ward who had been born much earlier. The remarkable advances made over the past 40 years in this area have moved viability forward. And because of the medical complications surrounding Jack's birth, we saw detailed imaging of him early in the second trimester that revealed physical traits that I recognize today as my 5-year-old boy runs around the backyard playing tag with his sister.

Science and medicine may not impact the Constitution directly, but they will continue to move persuadable justices as they did with O'Connor in 1992.

With state legislatures like Texas and Wisconsin testing the boundaries of Roe, expect to see these issues discussed again before the court soon. Let's hope more news outlets follow the Times' lead this morning instead of mindlessly following a left-leaning narrative on abortion that is more interested in promoting political agendas than reporting on political realities.